To prevent others from interfering with their personal privacy, and to provide security and safety, people have relied on one-way telecommunications such as a pager, or on screening telephone calls with caller ID. For serious circumstances, some people even go so far as to change their telephone number or numbers, which can be costly and inconvenient as it requires notifying family and friends of the new number.
Published United States patent application US2004/0101123 by Garcia discloses a method for providing a temporary telephone number in which the temporary number is linked to a directory telephone number of the person being called. Garcia, however, does not disclose or suggest a method in which a temporary number is linked to a terminal that is associated with an IP address for Voice over Internet Protocol (“VoIP”) telephony.
Accordingly, the present invention provides an easy and inexpensive solution to the telephony security problem with methods and systems for assigning temporary additional telephone numbers that expire after a defined period of time.